


32 Minutes

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Drummer Marlowe, F/M, Jazz - Freeform, Saxophonist Hitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 20:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11260884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: Only Hitch Deliss would spend a Sunday night partying with the woodwind ensemble and come to a Monday rehearsal while hungover.





	32 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this part 2 to 12:24. I might write more stories in this particular AU outside of Hitch and Marlowe's relationship. I've been thinking long and hard about this AU and thinking about where all the other characters would be.
> 
> Once I get more time on my hands, I'll definitely see if I can get something down.

No one ever pegged Hitch Deliss as someone who worked for what they wanted.

The truth was, she didn’t care. Her life was too busy for her to focus on the pointless opinions of others.

At the end of the day, Hitch Deliss was someone who worked for what they got, and only made it to her current skill level with hours of patience and practice.

A decade ago, Hitch was a middle schooler simply wondering what instrument she would pick for band class. Her mother, who didn’t exactly have a musical background, told Hitch to pick whatever instrument she wanted. (She did, however, heavily advise against the double bass considering its size.)

Fast forward years later and Hitch was getting ready to play a competition as a part of Nile Dawk’s studio band.

There was an element of luck in how she got to where she was. Hitch sometimes wondered where she would be if her woodwind teacher didn’t tell her that Nile was looking for new tenor saxes. Her life would have been different had she not been given the opportunity to audition for studio band.

Hitch decided to give the audition a go despite the looming risk of failure. The worst that would have happened would be rejection, and rejection was 75% of an artist’s life.

Even if she didn’t get in, she would at least get some audition experience under her belt.

One thing led to another and Hitch was now waking up at 7 to make it to a class that started at 9.

Vera Deliss often noticed how her daughter rushed in the morning. Breakfast tended to be a silent affair for the both of them.

By the second year of music school, Vera stopped nagging Hitch about her choice in career. She had given up on convincing Hitch to find a more solid path.

Being a jazz musician was a difficult thing to be. It was hard to succeed in the arts unless you were born a child prodigy or had enough luck to nab a million views on youtube.

Vera simply wanted the best for her daughter. It took a long time for Hitch to realize that all the pestering from her mother was well intentioned. Even when she did come to that conclusion, she swallowed her mother’s words with silence.

Hitch didn’t need to be reminded of the risks that came with studying the arts.

Sometimes, Hitch would skip breakfast altogether and rush out the door by 7:30, making sure that she had a firm grip on her saxophone case. It all depended on how much she wanted to tolerate her mother that morning.

The train would take her to her stop in exactly 32 minutes, and the only thing standing between the conservatory and her was a short walk.

On mornings where she ate breakfast at home, Hitch would head straight to the school. On the ones where she didn’t, she would stop by a cafe for an impromptu meal.

On a Monday morning where Hitch didn’t feel like bothering her mother at breakfast, she stepped into the cafe near her train station for something to fill her stomach.

Hitch wondered if all great jazz musicians ate greasy egg sandwiches before their morning classes. Most likely not, but she figured if she could handle a rehearsal while hungover, she could handle anything.

She just needed something to help her get over her headache.

After paying for her food, Hitch stopped by the condiment bar to pour an ungodly amount of almond milk into her coffee.

She felt someone’s shoulder brush hers and saw a hand reach across her line of sight, heading towards the sugar packets.

“Sorry,” they muttered as they reached across.  

“It’s okay.”

Hitch caught sight of the person in her peripherals. To her surprise, she recognized just exactly who it was.

She would know that bowl-cut anywhere.

Immediately, a cat-like grin spread across her face. She tipped her browline shades down her nose and said, “Oh, hey there, Drummer Boy.”

Marlowe Freudenberg perked up when he heard her voice. The stoic expression he wore in his eyes, however, did not falter. “Hey there, Deliss.”

Quickly, Marlowe pulled one of his earbuds out. He grabbed the phone in his breast pocket and turned off the music. Hitch expected to see some sort of ode to Buddy Rich playing on the screen. She did not, however, expect to see the words _‘No Diggity’_ instead.

Who could guess that the studio band’s core drummer liked to listen to 90s rap?

Marlowe ripped open some sugar packets and poured them into his latte. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“I don’t come in all the time,” Hitch explained. “Just when I forget to eat at home. What about you? Getting breakfast?”

“Just coffee,” Marlowe responded. “I ate breakfast at my place.”

“Smart move,” Hitch applauded. Right after she spoke, she pulled some of the wax paper off her sandwich and took her first bite.

The two musicians exited the cafe together. Marlowe held the door for his friend, all due to the saxophone she was currently lugging on her back. He was lucky to only have a few sticks to carry around on his commute.

“Where do you live anyway?” Hitch asked.

“Uptown,” Marlowe answered. “Kind of far, but my parents are still okay with me living at home.”

“You live with your parents?”

Marlowe nodded, “Yeah. What? There anything wrong with that?”

Hitch rolled her eyes, “Hey, there’s no shame in that. I still live with my mother. So don’t worry, no judgement from me.”

Hitch knew that she was in a particular stage of life. She was no longer spending her time working a retail job to pay for music school tuition. Now she was out for hours a day, and when she did make it home, Hitch would lock herself in her room to practice the same few bars over and over again.

It made Hitch value the spare time she got. She believed that in order to keep being a creative artist, she had to live her life to the fullest whenever she got the chance. It was the only way she could find inspiration to create and thrive.

“Do you got a drum set at home or do you just use the school’s?” Hitch asked Marlowe, carrying the conversation on.

“I got a kit at home,” he answered. “It’s electronic.”

Hitch laughed, though, not for any reason she could find herself pinpointing. “That sounds expensive.”

“We’re musicians, everything we use is expensive,” Marlowe pointed out.

Hitch stopped laughing, letting out a hum, “Actually, that’s a good point.”

In a way, he was right. The only reason why Hitch didn’t currently own a car was because she had spent all her money on her saxophone.

The two stepped off a street curb and crossed, making a hard left once they made it. The conservatory was not too far off.

Hitch took another bite of her sandwich. She didn’t realize just how much she had been craving something greasy until she had walked into the cafe.

As Hitch dug into her impromptu breakfast, she caught a quick glance of Marlowe to the side. He was staring at her with an intrigued look on his face.

Hitch swallowed and asked, “What? Never seen a hungover sax before?”

Marlowe raised an eyebrow, “You’re hungover!?”

“Yeah? So what? I like to have a good time every once in awhile,” Hitch defended. “It’s not a bad hangover anyway. If it were, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be at home in bed, telling my mother I got the flu.”

“We have class,” Marlowe reminded her. “How are we going to play if our first tenor sax is hungover?”

“What Dawk doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Hitch responded, finishing off her food. She crumpled the wax paper into a ball and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. “Besides, if I can be hungover around my mother, I can be hungover in class.”

Marlowe looked defeated. He pressed his palm to his face, sighing. “This is great. We’ve got a competition in two weeks and one of our soloists decided to get schnockered on a Sunday night.”

Hitch rolled her eyes and patted his shoulder, “Will you relax already? You’re what my mother would call a stuffed-shirt… or a putz.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Marlowe questioned, looking stern.

“It means that you’re taking things too seriously _and_ you’re being a dick,” Hitch declared. “We’re artists, okay? It’s our job to create. How can we create if we don’t live?” She had her one free hand thrown up in the air, bringing a dramatic effect to her words. “My definition of living just happens to involve chugging flaming jagerbombs with the woodwind ensemble.”

“We can create just fine if we spend our downtime practicing,” Marlowe explained. He adjusted the strap of his carrying case on his back.

“You really don’t get out a lot, do you?” Hitch observed.

Marlowe Freudenberg was a very proper person. Hitch noticed that he always came to class with his shirts tucked into his khakis and his cardigans kept spotless. She had not spent as much time with him as she wanted to, but they had a few lunches together before, usually in groups of people.

Now felt like one of the rare occasions where Hitch got to know Marlowe one-on-one.

He clearly did not spend his Sunday night rocking back flaming jagerbombs, or knew what it was like to wake up in a bathtub after partying with the brass section. It just wasn’t in his character.

“Most of my spare time goes to practicing,” Marlowe explained. “And not binge drinking.”

“Is it really binge drinking if I do it once every two weeks?” Hitch brought up. “We’re young, we’re allowed to live. I mean, what’s life if you’ve never made out with a random stranger in a bar?”

“You’re still living if you haven’t done any of that,” Marlowe said. “I’ve never done that and I’m still alive. Probably for good reason. I’ve never even had a girlfriend before.”

For a second, Hitch blinked. She crooked her head to the side and looked at him questioningly. It explained so much.

She soon let out a sigh and rolled her eyes, “Why does that not surprise me?”

Hitch sipped her coffee and watched as Marlowe shot her a sharp glare.

“You know, Deliss, I’ve met a lot of saxes in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever met one like you.”

“And I’ve met a lot of percussionists in mine, and I’ll tell you now, Drummer Boy, a lot of them are exactly like you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The reason why I made Hitch a saxophonist in this AU is because she gives me big 'plays Careless Whisper while running through the hallways' vibes.


End file.
